6 1 8 Historical Notice 



Adanson's tribes of plants, until 1789, a period of 25 years, 

 the natural method made no progress in the scientific world. 

 Neither in France, nor in other countries, had it any new 

 followers. The natural method was but foreseen ; it was not 

 yet really demonstrated. 



The Genera of 1789 had, on the contrary, an influence not, 

 indeed, immediate (for public attention was then distracted by 

 events foreign to the sciences, and of too great importance), 

 but very decisive, upon the direction of botanical studies. 

 Thus, at the end of a few years, it had pervaded, in an 

 almost universal manner, public instruction in France; not 

 only in the higher studies of the faculty and of the Jardin des 

 Plantes, in Paris, where it had its birth, but even in the 

 lessons of the greater number of central schools, those too 

 soon extinguished fires of general and varied information. 



In the Flore Francaise of Lamarck, and that of De Can- 

 dolle, botanical works in common use, many local floras were 

 arranged according to this method, and served to diffuse a 

 knowledge of it. At length, when scarcely twenty years had 

 passed, a foreign botanist, of eminent talent, declared himself 

 one of its most devoted champions, and contributed power- 

 fully towards bringing it to perfection. Since then it has spread 

 itself through Europe, and, we may say, through the whole 

 world. Its superiority is generally acknowledged over the 

 artificial methods, which were no longer made use of, except 

 as what they really are, more or less convenient clues to 

 arrive at the nomenclature of plants. 



We may add, with Cuvier, that the influence of the Genera 

 Plantarum is not confined to botany : all natural history and 

 zoology, in particular, have benefited by the principles which 

 had directed Jussieu, and which he had so well developed in 

 his admirable introduction ; and we are led to think that 

 Cuvier, in expressing this opinion, founded it on his own 

 experience, and that the principles of the Genera Plantarum 

 were able, to a certain degree, to direct him in the reforms 

 which he introduced into zoological systems. For a work to 

 obtain gradually, and in a permanent manner, an influence so 

 positive and so generally acknowledged over the progress of 

 science, it must necessarily combine two different kinds of 

 merits : ideas that are general, true, important, and novel ; 

 and an application of these ideas as perfect as possible in all 

 its details. This is, in fact, what we find united in the Genera 

 of Antoine Laurent De Jussieu. The introduction presents, 

 in the clearest and most elegant Latin ever employed in 

 science, not only an explanation of the fundamental principles 

 of the natural method, but as perfect a description of the 



